made necessary. The Oankali were as patient as the waiting Earth.
She realized that Gabriel was staring at her.
'You're still worried about them, aren't you?' he asked.
She nodded.
'I think they believed you. All of them, not just Van Weerden and Jean.'
'1 know. They'll believe me for a little while. Then some of them will decide I'm lying to them or that I've been lied to.'
'Are you sure you haven't?' Tate asked.
'I'm sure I have,' Lilith said bitterly. 'By omission, at least.'
'But then-'
'This is what I know,' Lilith said: 'Our rescuers, our captors are extraterrestrials. We are aboard their ship. I've seen and felt enough-including weightlessness-to be convinced that it is a ship. We're in space. And we're in the hands of people who manipulate DNA as naturally as we manipulate pencils and paintbrushes. That's what I know. That's what I've told you all. And if any of you decide to behave as though it isn't true, we'll all be lucky if we're just put to sleep and split up.'
She looked at the three faces and forced a weary smile.
'End of speech,' she said. 'I'd better get something for Joseph.'
'You should have gotten him out here,' Tate said.
'Don't worry about it,' Lilith told her.
'You could bring me a meal now and then,' Gabriel said to her as Lilith left them.
'See what you've done!' Tate called after her.
Lilith found herself smiling an unforced smile as she took more food from the cabinets.. It was inevitable that some of the people she Awakened would disbelieve her, dislike her, distrust her. At least there were others she could talk to, relax with. There was hope if she could only keep the skeptics from self-destructing.
9
For a time, Joseph would not speak or take food from her hands. Once she understood this, she sat with him to wait. She had not Awakened him when she came back to the room, had sealed the room and slept beside him until his movements woke her. Now she sat with him, worried but feeling no real hostility from him. He did not seem to resent her presence.
He was sorting out his feelings, she thought. He was trying to understand what had happened.
She had put a few pieces of fruit on the bed between them. She had said, knowing he would not answer, 'It was a neurosensory illusion. Nikanj stimulates nerves directly, and we remember or create experiences to suit the sensations. On a physical level, Nikanj feels what we feel. It can't read our thoughts. It can't get away with hurting us-unless it's willing to suffer the same pain.' She hesitated. 'It said it strengthened you a little. You'll have to be careful at first, and exercise. You won't get hurt easily. if something does happen to you you'll heal the way I do.'
He had not spoken, had not looked at her, but she knew he had heard. There was nothing vacant about him.
She sat with him, waited, oddly comfortable, nibbling at the fruit now and then. After a time, she lay back, feet on the floor, body stretched across the bed. The movement attracted him.
He turned, stared at her as though he had forgotten she was there. 'You should get up,' he said. 'The light's coming back. Morning.'
'Talk to me,' she said.
He rubbed his head. 'It wasn't real? Not any of it?'
'We didn't touch each other.'
He grabbed her hand and held it. 'That thing. . . did it all.'
'Neural stimulation.'
'How?'
'They hook into our nervous systems somehow. They're more sensitive than we are. Anything we feel a little, they feel a lot-and they feel it almost before we're conscious of it. That helps them stop doing anything painful before we notice that they've begun.'
'They've done it to you before?'
She nodded.
'With. . . other men?'
'Alone or with Nikanj's mates.'
Abruptly, he got up and began to pace.
'They aren't human,' she said.
'Then how can they. . .? Their nervous systems can't be like ours. How can they make us feel. . . what I felt?'
'By pushing the right electrochemical buttons. I don't claim to understand it. It's like a language that they have a special gift for. They know our bodies better than we do.'
